Shareholders of regional pay television operator Austar have voted overwhelmingly to support a $2 billion takeover bid by Foxtel.

The final tally showed 97.6 per cent of shareholders voted in favour of the merger at a general meeting in Sydney this afternoon, which was well above the required 75 per cent threshold.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is yet to approve the takeover, which was announced in May last year, and it has expressed concerns that the merger of Australia's two main pay TV providers would destroy competition in the market.

Austar believes the ACCC will make its final ruling before a court hearing on the takeover due on April 13.

The deadline for the merger is April 17, and Austar chief executive John Porter said the company would consider extending the agreement if the ACCC had not approved the deal by then.

"We have extended the agreement once," Mr Porter said after the meeting.

"If we had to we will have a look at it again.

"We are pretty confident at this point, so we haven't done a lot of work on that but we will cross that bridge when we come to it."

Austar deputy chairman Tim Downing, an independent board director, says the shareholders' meeting went ahead to avoid further delays in the takeover process.

"While Austar remains optimistic of a positive outcome by proceeding with the shareholder meetings ... Austar makes no representations that ACCC approval will either be granted or be granted in time to enable the scheme to proceed," he said.

Foxtel is half-owned by Telstra. James Packer's Consolidated Media Holdings and Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation each hold a 25 per cent stake.